Regeringsuppdrag Prissäkring Elmarknaden (2026)

Type: Government decision (Regeringsbeslut) + Ei news coverage Authority: Klimat- och näringslivsdepartementet Reference: KN2026/01425, Regeringsbeslut I:10 Date: 2026-06-25 (decision); 2026-07-08 (Ei news coverage) Signed by: Ebba Busch and Åsa Leander Recipients: Ei and Svenska kraftnät Title: Uppdrag till Energimarknadsinspektionen och Affärsverket svenska kraftnät att föreslå åtgärder för att förbättra prissäkringsmöjligheterna på elmarknaden

Summary

The government has assigned Ei and Svk to jointly propose measures to improve long-term price-hedging (prissäkring) on the Swedish electricity market, with the aim of promoting investment in both electricity production and electricity use. The assignment sits alongside — and explicitly cross-references — the ongoing anvisningssystem/connection-queue reform (see Source - Svk Anslutningsprocessen Rapport (2026)) and SOU 2025:47.

Key content

Scope of the assignment

The authorities must:

• Analyse the possibilities for long-term price-hedging on the electricity market and how it facilitates investment in production and use of electricity
• Identify what changes are needed to enable the investments required to meet the planeringsmål (planning target) and leveranssäkerhetsmål (security-of-supply target)
• Specifically analyse how price-hedging instruments — long-term power purchase agreements (elköpsavtal) among them — can be designed and used to enable faster connection of large electricity users, where those users invest in new fossil-free production matching their own consumption
• Propose concrete measures for each identified need, including detailed design, implementation, financing, and impact assessment, plus any necessary författningsförslag (legislative drafting proposals), consistent with the consequence-assessment ordinance (2024:183)
• Ensure proposals comply with EU state-aid rules
• Consult Vinnova and RISE, and build on the conclusions of Svk’s 2026-04-29 connection-process report (KN2025/01694)

Deadline: report to Klimat- och näringslivsdepartementet by 3 June 2027.

Policy backdrop

• 29 May 2024: Riksdag adopted two new targets for the Swedish electricity system — leveranssäkerhetsmålet (the system must be able to deliver electricity where, when, and in sufficient quantity as demanded, to the extent socioeconomically efficient) and planeringsmålet (the system must be planned to meet at least 300 TWh of demand by 2045, tracked at 2030/2035/2040/2045 checkpoints from 2030).
• 24 April 2025: the Elmarknadsutredningen delivered SOU 2025:47 Spänning i tillvaron — hur säkrar vi vår framtida elförsörjning?, which judged it uncertain whether the market alone will deliver the diversity and volume of fossil-free investment needed, in the right place and at the right time.
• 20 February 2026: the government’s new AI strategy flagged that AI-driven demand growth requires stronger coordination between the siting of computing capacity and the availability of grid and generation.
• 29 April 2026: Svk’s connection-process report (Dnr 2025/5008) found that Sweden’s connection queue was, in early 2026, roughly as large as the capacity the system already carries, and proposed investigating whether large new electricity users should be required to bring matching new fossil-free production as a condition of connection — this new prissäkring assignment directly follows up that proposal, focusing specifically on the long-term-contract instruments (PPAs) that would make such a requirement operable.

The core policy idea

Large new electricity users (e.g. data centres) could be allowed to jump the connection queue if they simultaneously arrange new fossil-free production with a matching load curve — reducing the risk that fast-moving demand growth outpaces slower-to-build generation, and increasing public acceptance of large new connections. This is the same “PPA as verification instrument” mechanism already flagged as under investigation in Power Purchase Agreement › As connection condition in anvisningssystem, now elevated to a dedicated cross-agency assignment with its own legislative-proposal deadline.

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